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Famous Cash Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Cash poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous cash poems. These examples illustrate what a famous cash poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...may answer;
A man may hae an honest heart,
 Tho’ poortith hourly stare him;
A man may tak a neibor’s part,
 Yet hae nae cash to spare him.


Aye free, aff-han’, your story tell,
 When wi’ a bosom crony;
But still keep something to yoursel’,
 Ye scarcely tell to ony:
Conceal yoursel’ as weel’s ye can
 Frae critical dissection;
But keek thro’ ev’ry other man,
 Wi’ sharpen’d, sly inspection.


The sacred lowe o’ weel-plac’d love,
 Luxuriantly indulge it;
But never tempt ...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert



...Its hunger and its hope.
This goes against the time
When food is bought, not grown.
O come into the market
With cash, and come to rest
In this economy
Where all we need is money
To be well stuffed and free
By sufferance of our Lord,
The Chairman of the Board.
Because theres thus no need
To plant ones ground with seed.
Under the seasons sway,
Against the best advice,
In time of death and tears,
In slow snowfall of years,
Defiant and in hope,
We keep an older wa...Read more of this...
by Berry, Wendell
...sing.


Had I to guid advice but harkit,
I might, by this, hae led a market,
Or strutted in a bank and clarkit
 My cash-account;
While here, half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit.
 Is a’ th’ amount.


I started, mutt’ring, “blockhead! coof!”
And heav’d on high my waukit loof,
To swear by a’ yon starry roof,
 Or some rash aith,
That I henceforth wad be rhyme-proof
 Till my last breath—


When click! the string the snick did draw;
An’ jee! the door gaed to the wa’;
An’ b...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert
...ies, legends, collections, and the practice handed
 along in
 manufactures—will we rate them so high? 
Will we rate our cash and business high?—I have no objection;
I rate them as high as the highest—then a child born of a woman and man I rate beyond
 all
 rate.


We thought our Union grand, and our Constitution grand; 
I do not say they are not grand and good, for they are; 
I am this day just as much in love with them as you; 
Then I am in love with you, and with all my...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...r along 
Divided through a marsh, lined by the fence
We stretched to posts with Mister Garner’s help
The time he needed cash for his son’s bail
And offered all his place. A noble spring
Under the oak root cooled his milk and butter.
He called me “honey,” working with us there
(My father bought three acres as a gift),
His wife pale, hair a country orange, voice
Uncanny, like a ghost’s, through the open door
Behind her, chickens scratching on the floor.
Barred Rocks...Read more of this...
by Bowers, Edgar



...back last night at midnight,
arriving in the thick June night
without luggage or defenses,
giving up my car keys and my cash,
keeping only a pack of Salem cigarettes
the way a child holds on to a toy.
I signed myself in where a stranger
puts the inked-in X's—
for this is a mental hospital,
not a child's game.

Today an intern knocks my knees,
testing for reflexes.
Once I would have winked and begged for dope.
Today I am terribly patient.
Today crows play b...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne
...y've dubbed themselves
the intellectual cream - deigning
to hand out poems when they're asked
(for proper recompense in cash
or fawning) - but well beyond the risk
of letting others turn the bleeders
down so sure they are they're halfway
to the gods (yet still need preening)

a poem from one of them is like 
the loaves and fishes jesus touched
and rendered food for the five thousand
they too can walk on water in
their home - or so the reviewers say
poetry from their mouths is...Read more of this...
by Gregory, Rg
...eir money lodge; confiscate when he please. 
These can at need, at instant, with a scrip 
(This liked him best) his cash beyond sea whip. 
When Dutch invade, when Parliament prepare, 
How can he engines so convenient spare? 
Let no man touch them or demand his own, 
Pain of displeasure of great Clarendon. 

The state affairs thus marshalled, for the rest 
Monck in his shirt against the Dutch is pressed. 
Often, dear Painter, have I sat and mused 
Why he should...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew
...ees,
Give pensions, salaries, places, bribes,
Or chuse us judges, clerks or scribes?
Has it commissions in its gift,
Or cash to serve us at a lift?
Are acts of parliament there made,
To carry on the placeman's trade,
Or has it pass'd a single bill
To let us plunder whom we will?


"And look our list of placemen all over;
Did heaven appoint our chief Judge Oliver,
Fill that high bench with ignoramus,
Or has it councils by mandamus?
Who made that wit of water-gruel
A judge of a...Read more of this...
by Trumbull, John
...rd afflicted me?
The Saints are helpless for all I offer--
 So are the clergy I used to fee.
Henceforward I keep my cash in my coffer,
 Because the Lord has afflicted me.


 Material

I run eight hundred hens to the acre
 They die by dozens mysteriously. . . .
I am more than doubtful concerning my Maker,
 Why has the Lord afflicted me?
What a return for all my endeavour--
 Not to mention the L. S. D!
I am an atheist now and for ever,
 Because t...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard
...e or prude?"

Well, if I have to choose one or the other,
I choose to be a plain New Hampshire farmer
With an income in cash of, say, a thousand
(From, say, a publisher in New York City). 
It's restful to arrive at a decision,
And restful just to think about New Hampshire.
At present I am living in Vermont....Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert
...hurdled cotes amid the field secure, 
Leaps o'er the fence with ease into the fold: 
Or as a thief, bent to unhoard the cash 
Of some rich burgher, whose substantial doors, 
Cross-barred and bolted fast, fear no assault, 
In at the window climbs, or o'er the tiles: 
So clomb this first grand thief into God's fold; 
So since into his church lewd hirelings climb. 
Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life, 
The middle tree and highest there that grew, 
Sat like a cormorant...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...within reach,
And nothing at all to be done!
 No letters to answer,
 No bills to be burned,
 No work to be shirked,
 No cash to be earned,
It is pleasant to sit on the beach
With nothing at all to be done!

How pleasant to look at the ocean,
Democratic and damp; indiscriminate;
It fills me with noble emotion
To think I am able to swim in it.
 To lave in the wave,
 Majestic and chilly,
 Tomorrow I crave;
 But today it is silly.
It is pleasant to look at the ocean;
Tomo...Read more of this...
by Nash, Ogden
...omen lovin' in this world; 
Takin' our chances as they come along, 
An' when they ain't, pretendin' they are good? 

In cash or credit—no, it aren't no good; 
You've to 'ave the 'abit or you'd die, 
Unless you lived your life but one day long, 
Nor didn't prophesy nor fret at all, 
But drew your tucker some'ow from the world, 
An' never bothered what you might ha' done. 

But, Gawd, what things are they I'aven't done? 
I've turned my 'and to most, an' turned it good, 
In ...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard
...ow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursed cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead -- it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want yo...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...b's out." 
"No? Then it's your own. 
It's all your own, but don't be rash 
He's got the goods if you've got the cash, 
And what one hand can do he'll do. 
Be careful this next round or two."

Time. There was Bill, and I felt sick 
That luck should play so mean a trick 
And give me leave to knock him out 
After he'd plainly won the bout. 
But by the way the man came at me 
He made it plain he meant to bat me; 
If you'd a seen the way he come 
You wouldn...Read more of this...
by Masefield, John
...mense,
 Might perhaps have won more than his share--
But a Banker, engaged at enormous expense,
 Had the whole of their cash in his care.

There was also a Beaver, that paced on the deck,
 Or would sit making lace in the bow:
And had often (the Bellman said) saved them from wreck,
 Though none of the sailors knew how.

There was one who was famed for the number of things
 He forgot when he entered the ship:
His umbrella, his watch, all his jewels and rings,
 And the c...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis
...se enow! 

XIII.
Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Promise go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum! 

XIV.
Were it not Folly, Spider-like to spin
The Thread of present Life away to win --
What? for ourselves, who know not if we shall
Breathe out the very Breath we now breathe in! 

XV.
Look to the Rose that blows about us -- "Lo,
Laughing," she says, "into the World I blow:
At onc...Read more of this...
by Khayyam, Omar
...Liston, things had to be dreary.
Then someone with color and someone with dash, 
brought fight fans are runnin' with Cash.
This brash young boxer is something to see 
and the heavyweight championship is his destiny.
This kid's got a left, this kid's got a right, 
if he hit you once, you're asleep for the night. 

This is the legend of Muhammad Ali, 
The greatest fighter that ever will be. 
He talks a great deal and brags, indeed. 
Of a powerful punch and blinding ...Read more of this...
by Ali, Muhammad
...ter the rain-washed streets erased the footprints
of tired mothers who waited in line
under the red and gold transom
to cash their welfare checks.

And maybe we're all feeling the same rage,
seeing the up-turned fish tanks stacked against the parakeet cages,
sunlight catching on the twisted wire between the shabbiness
of an emptied storefront, rays of sunlight poking in
to finger the dusty hollowness of barren shelves.
Or maybe it's the cheap Plexiglas above the Chine...Read more of this...
by Hillringhouse, Mark

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry